Step aside ransomware: Why cryptojacking is the new kid on the block

With the ability to generate a staggering $1.5 trillion in revenues every year, cybercrime is big business. It’s the perfect model – earn a high income for minimum effort and risk of penalty. It comes as no surprise then that when faced with issues around the fluctuating value of Bitcoin, cybercriminals stepped into action. These savvy criminals created a new attack technique that offers better paid out odds in comparison to ransomware – cryptojacking – unauthorised use of someone else’s computing resources to mine cryptocurrency. This new technique has quickly risen in the ranks, replacing ransomware as the number one threat for consumers and enterprises. Let’s look more in detail at the factors that have driven this shift. With a cryptocurrency market cap of nearly $500 billion, cryptojacking is extremely attractive for cybercriminals: it doesn’t require high technical skills and, unlike ransomware, offers a potential 100% pay-out ratio. Once compromised, infected machines can immediately start to mine cryptocurrency in stealth mode regardless of its processing power or geographical location. Even low-end systems are useful to the cause since it’s the size of the network of compromised machines, and hence the total computational power, that really matters. Additionally, if the attackers don’t get carried away and tune the miner not to completely drain the CPU, the attack can go on stealth and undetected for a long time.